Smoking: Four months after neutral packaging, it does not influence smoking

CIGARETTE: shipments of cigarettes to tobacconists are up 1.4% in Q1 2017 compared to those of the first three months of 2016 …

It had to be “the” measure to reduce smoking . But neutral packages, whose presence on the shelves of newsagents has been mandatory since the 1st January 2017, did not produce the desired effect.

According to the customs administration, quoted on Tuesday by The Parisien, No, the deliveries of cigarettes to tobacconists is up 1.4% in the first quarter of 2017 compared to those of the first three months of 2016.

A long-term impact?

Worse, nearly 4 billion cigarettes were sold in France in March, up 4.5% year on year. As for tobacconists, neutral package has not been welcomed with open arms.

“Our retailers are lost in the references, very difficult to distinguish on their shelves. All for it, so that customers could care less. At first, they sometimes bought caches, now is completely trivialized, “says Pascal Montredon, president of the Confederation of tobacconists.

The General Directorate of Health believes, however, that “neutral package aims to change the image of tobacco, mainly towards the younger persons. The impact on consumption will see the medium or long term. Most of today’s consumers are addicted to tobacco and packaging of change is not the first element that will push them to stop drinking. ”

Higher prices more dissuasive than a packaging

Rising prices would then be the most effective lever, according to the pulmonologist Bertrand Dautzenberg. “It would have to pass 10 € for it to work,” he says. It also indicates that new images shocks, which smokers should not get used to, should arrive in late May.

But the French seem to be paradoxically also very likely to want to stop. It should be noted that sales of stopped smoking treatments are also up 29% in February 2017 year on year, according to data from the French Office for Drugs and Drug Addiction.